Driving the JAG
We waited by the scout hut where our cub meetings were held. School had been out for half an hour – just enough time to dash home, change into older clothes and get along the road to the hut. The five of us were excited and noisy, leaping at each other, punching and kneeing.
“It’s my turn”, I said, gritting my teeth and punching my arrowed fist into the upper part of Derek’s arm.
“Ouch!” said Derek, punching back. “That was sore. It’s not you – you got to do it last week”. His long lank hair kept falling across his eyes so that he had to keep shaking his head to the side to see.
“No I didn’t. Tommy got it last week. I just sat in the front. I didn’t get to drive.”
“I’m navigating”, piped up Alistair. “He told me I could do it this week.
“What? He’s told you? You lucky blighter. When did he say that?”
“Yesterday. I was in his shop. He came out from the back and saw me. He asked me to come through into the back and that’s when he told me.”
“Bet he never!”
“He did!”
“What did he say then? Did you get any broken biscuits?”
“Yes. He gave me a bag with some in it. For me, he said. Don’t tell your mum about them, he said. Or about the car. It’s you navigating tomorrow. And Jimmy’ll drive on the way back.”
“What did you do with the biscuits? Have you eaten them all?”
“Me and my brother Johnny, we ate them all. There’s none left.”
“What time’s it?”
“Dunno. Anybody got a watch?” None of us had.
“It can’t be long now. We’ve been here about ten minutes. He should be along soon. Look out for his car. You can hear it miles away.”
And just then the Jaguar slowly turned the corner at the end of the street and made a leisurely approach accompanied by a raw powerful roaring noise.
We were impressed as usual. We didn’t know that the noise was caused by the driver keeping the car in a too-low gear and revving it for just that purpose. To us the noise was that of the Maseratis and Ferraris we’d gaped at on Movietone News many times – the noise of big engines in big fast cars.
The Jaguar rolled to a stop in front of us and we crowded round the front near-side door. As we pulled the handle trying to open the door, Basil got out of the driver’s side and walked round to us. “Ok. Ok. Just take it easy. You’ll scratch the paint – then you’re in real trouble.” He pushed us back onto the pavement.
He was middle-aged, of medium height, and running to fat. Hs most notable feature was a completely bald head. He face was round, unmarked, smooth and shining with perspiration. A smile would appear for no apparent reason, then disappear just as mysteriously giving him an indecisive untrustworthy look.
He looked at us and we looked back with unspoken pleas.
“Right Alistair, I promised it would be your turn today. And Jimmy will bring us back home. Ok?”
The three who’d been promised nothing looked crestfallen. Basil took out his car keys and opened the two near-side doors. Alistair got into the passenger seat and the other four of us got into the back. Basil went around to the driver’s side and got in. He started up the engine and the car pulled away.
It took only a few minutes for us to get outside of the home patch and well into the central city traffic. Basil turned his head to Alistair sitting expectantly beside him. “Right now, Alistair, I hope you’re ready for some navigator training. We must try to get you ready for your wayfarer badge. Can’t leave anything to chance, can we? Do you think we can start now?”
“Ok sir”, said Alistair, smiling.
“No, no. Not sir. Just Basil will do. We’re all friends together eh?”
“Ok….Basil”
“Right, you know what to do. As we go along, you’ve to tell me which way to turn. If we’ve to turn left you touch my left knee. If we’ve to turn right you touch my right knee – you’ll need to stretch over. If it’s straight on you touch me in the middle – just under my tum. Just here.” He indicated the buckle on the belt securing his trousers to his bulbous stomach. “Remember to keep your hand in position until we’re out of the junction – right around the corner or right the way across. You get five marks for each correct navigation. See how many you can get by the time we get to the baths.”
“I got a hundred and twenty last week”, piped up Tommy excitedly. We all loved this game, especially as we knew it would help us get our cub wayfarers badge. We played it ourselves in the back; Tommy pretended to drive and Tim and I, looking ahead and observing the street junctions, silently put our hands on his knees and tummy as the drive progressed.
The car drove sedately along Princes Street, down by Holyrood and out to Portobello. There were many more straight-across junctions than turns. Alistair’s hand spent more time in the tummy region than on the knees. He noticed, without much interest, that a small lump seemed to have appeared in the front of Basil’s trousers. He supposed it was an apple, well a small apple or plum, or maybe a potato but why would he have a potato in his pocket? Strange. But he was too engrossed in the game to worry too much about what it was.
“That’s 90. You’re doing well”, said Basil.
Once, near the end of the journey, just at the foot of the road leading into Portobello and going straight across the junction, Basil’s hand pressed down on top of Alistair’s pushing it down onto the apple. But it didn’t feel so much like an apple now, more like a sausage.
Then they were there. The car pulled up outside the baths.
“A hundred and thirty”, said Basil, patting Alistair’s head with his left hand and adjusting his belt with his right. “Well done Alistair. You’ll soon get your badge. You’ll see.”
We trooped into the baths. Basil and each of us boys went into a separate cubicle. We took off our clothes and put them unfolded into a metal basket. We handed the baskets to the attendant and went to the pool. Just before we entered the water, Basil said, “OK, boys. Do you want to play ‘Sink the submarine’?”
“Yes. Yes” we cried excitedly.
This was a favourite. Basil would float on his back pretending to be a stricken enemy submarine – we’d seen these on Movietone News too. We boys would be British sailors whose mission was to sink the submarine by climbing on board and overwhelming it. This inevitably involved much scrambling about on Basil and holding on to whatever came to hand as he moved about to dislodge us. We loved him for being such a good sport.
Tiring of this eventually, we had a diving competition, then a game of ‘tig’, then a speed swimming competition. All too soon it was time to leave the pool. We had the mandatory cold shower then picked up our clothes baskets and went into the cubicles.
As was the custom, I had removed my trunks and was standing naked waiting to be dried. The door of the cubicle opened and Basil came in. “I’ve just come to make sure that you get dried properly. Stand up on the bench.”
I climbed up onto the wooden bench at the back of the cubicle and stood facing Basil who was still wearing his tiny tight black trunks. He picked up the towel from the seat and started to dry my hair, then my face, neck and shoulders.
“Turn around.” He dried my back and the backs of my legs. “Ok. Turn around again.” He dried the front of my legs and then my feet.
“Now. Most important. We must get every nook and cranny dry.” He shoved his towelled hand between my legs and began rubbing up into my crotch. I opened my legs wide to make it easier. Basil’s hand rubbed right up between the cheeks of my bottom. “Do you like that?” he asked. “It’s important to get every place really dry.”
He pulled his hand out from between my legs. He dropped the towel onto the bench then reached out and took the tiny pink worm in his fingers and started to pull it and rub it.
“I’m just making sure everything is really dry”, he said, watching my face intently. He pulled and twisted the worm till it got sore. I winced. “Sorry. I’m a bit rough. But we can’t be too careful. We need to get every little crevice dry.” He kept up the manipulation. The little worm stayed stubbornly flaccid.
Eventually, with a hint of irritation, he picked up the towel, handed it to me and said, “Ok, that’s you done. Now get your clothes on.” He moved along to Tim’s cubicle.
When we had all been dried and had put our clothes on, it was straight out and back into the Jaguar. We always asked Basil if we could play on the beach outside the baths but he would have none of it. He insisted that our parents would be expecting us back and if we didn’t get home as soon as possible they would worry.
We got back to the car. “Right, who’s to be the driver today?” Basil asked, in an excited voice. “Come on!”
“It’s me”, I cried, standing beside the driver’s door, holding it tight by the handle to prevent any of the other boys getting in. Tommy, Tim and Derek piled into the back seats while Alistair went round the back of the car and into the passenger door. Seeing all the other boys seated, Basil pushed past me onto the driver’s seat and pulled me onto his lap. He pulled the door shut then started the car and drove away with me holding the steering wheel.
When we got to the long straight between Portobello and Leith passing where the Marine Gardens used to be, Basil said to me, “Right Jimmy, your turn. You drive.” And with that he took his hands off the steering wheel and I was left to steer the car myself. My heart was beating with the thrill of it. I could hardly breathe from excitement. Me. Wee Jimmy. Driving a car! A Jaguar. Going at…I glanced at the speedometer…35 miles an hour.
I felt the fingers of Basil’s right hand running up my thigh and into the legs of my short trousers. It tickled but I could do nothing – I was too scared to let go of the steering wheel. I wriggled.
“Careful!” he said, “Watch the road!” His fingers pushed under and into my underpants. He took the little worm between his fingers and slowly rolled, and pulled and squeeezed it. I wriggled in discomfort and involuntarily pulled the steering wheel too hard and the car veered towards the pavement. “Oops, careful”, he said, correcting it with a slight movement of his left hand.
The boys in the back gave hoots of glee at the sudden swerve. Alistair in the front shouted, “Don’t crash Jimmy.” I tried to concentrate.
“This is real fun”, said Basil, “do you like driving, Jimmy?”
“Oh, yeah, Basil. It’s great.” I was excited and proud.
Basil put his left hand on the wheel and started gently to push and pull it making the car weave along the road, not much but just enough to cause us passengers to rock from side to side.
The boys laughed and cheered. “Jimmy’s going to crash. Jimmy’s going to crash!” they whooped.
I could feel myself rocking on Basil’s lap. His fingers were working harder inside my trousers and the worm was getting sore. He seemed to be rocking more than just by the car and he even seemed to be rocking in the opposite direction. This brought his body far more sharply against mine and I wriggled even more in discomfort.
“Keep driving, Jimmy. You’re doing well.” Suddenly he spluttered and gave a gasp. I thought I must have made a mistake. I felt frightened. What was happening?
“You drive now”, I said to him. “I’ve had enough.”
He had stopped rocking and he took his fingers out of my trousers. “Ok, Jimmy, that’ll do. You’ve done well. Hasn’t he boys?”
There was a chorus of “Yeah, but he nearly crashed near the end. He was swerving all over the place.”
“No I wasn’t. It was him. He was pulling the steering wheel.” I shouted, pointing at Basil.
“Come on, come on”, he said to me, “just jump over into the back.” I clambered over onto the back seat and sat down between Alistair and Derek.
“He was.” I said, “Honest.”
And we drove, faster now, up to Princes Street and off to the west and home.
Several weeks later, one of us, savvier than the rest, told his parents what was happening. And not long after, Basil suddenly disappeared. No one ever saw him again. The bakers shop he owned was sold and it was presumed he had moved to another town somewhere.
There was a lot of whispering about him and there seemed to be a lot of anger. But I, unaware of what the whispering was about, missed him and missed driving the Jag.
And many decades later, and knowing what he had been up to, I can yet feel sympathy for a man who must have lived his life in constant fear of being found out, but driven by urges over which he had little control.
We waited by the scout hut where our cub meetings were held. School had been out for half an hour – just enough time to dash home, change into older clothes and get along the road to the hut. The five of us were excited and noisy, leaping at each other, punching and kneeing.
“It’s my turn”, I said, gritting my teeth and punching my arrowed fist into the upper part of Derek’s arm.
“Ouch!” said Derek, punching back. “That was sore. It’s not you – you got to do it last week”. His long lank hair kept falling across his eyes so that he had to keep shaking his head to the side to see.
“No I didn’t. Tommy got it last week. I just sat in the front. I didn’t get to drive.”
“I’m navigating”, piped up Alistair. “He told me I could do it this week.
“What? He’s told you? You lucky blighter. When did he say that?”
“Yesterday. I was in his shop. He came out from the back and saw me. He asked me to come through into the back and that’s when he told me.”
“Bet he never!”
“He did!”
“What did he say then? Did you get any broken biscuits?”
“Yes. He gave me a bag with some in it. For me, he said. Don’t tell your mum about them, he said. Or about the car. It’s you navigating tomorrow. And Jimmy’ll drive on the way back.”
“What did you do with the biscuits? Have you eaten them all?”
“Me and my brother Johnny, we ate them all. There’s none left.”
“What time’s it?”
“Dunno. Anybody got a watch?” None of us had.
“It can’t be long now. We’ve been here about ten minutes. He should be along soon. Look out for his car. You can hear it miles away.”
And just then the Jaguar slowly turned the corner at the end of the street and made a leisurely approach accompanied by a raw powerful roaring noise.
We were impressed as usual. We didn’t know that the noise was caused by the driver keeping the car in a too-low gear and revving it for just that purpose. To us the noise was that of the Maseratis and Ferraris we’d gaped at on Movietone News many times – the noise of big engines in big fast cars.
The Jaguar rolled to a stop in front of us and we crowded round the front near-side door. As we pulled the handle trying to open the door, Basil got out of the driver’s side and walked round to us. “Ok. Ok. Just take it easy. You’ll scratch the paint – then you’re in real trouble.” He pushed us back onto the pavement.
He was middle-aged, of medium height, and running to fat. Hs most notable feature was a completely bald head. He face was round, unmarked, smooth and shining with perspiration. A smile would appear for no apparent reason, then disappear just as mysteriously giving him an indecisive untrustworthy look.
He looked at us and we looked back with unspoken pleas.
“Right Alistair, I promised it would be your turn today. And Jimmy will bring us back home. Ok?”
The three who’d been promised nothing looked crestfallen. Basil took out his car keys and opened the two near-side doors. Alistair got into the passenger seat and the other four of us got into the back. Basil went around to the driver’s side and got in. He started up the engine and the car pulled away.
It took only a few minutes for us to get outside of the home patch and well into the central city traffic. Basil turned his head to Alistair sitting expectantly beside him. “Right now, Alistair, I hope you’re ready for some navigator training. We must try to get you ready for your wayfarer badge. Can’t leave anything to chance, can we? Do you think we can start now?”
“Ok sir”, said Alistair, smiling.
“No, no. Not sir. Just Basil will do. We’re all friends together eh?”
“Ok….Basil”
“Right, you know what to do. As we go along, you’ve to tell me which way to turn. If we’ve to turn left you touch my left knee. If we’ve to turn right you touch my right knee – you’ll need to stretch over. If it’s straight on you touch me in the middle – just under my tum. Just here.” He indicated the buckle on the belt securing his trousers to his bulbous stomach. “Remember to keep your hand in position until we’re out of the junction – right around the corner or right the way across. You get five marks for each correct navigation. See how many you can get by the time we get to the baths.”
“I got a hundred and twenty last week”, piped up Tommy excitedly. We all loved this game, especially as we knew it would help us get our cub wayfarers badge. We played it ourselves in the back; Tommy pretended to drive and Tim and I, looking ahead and observing the street junctions, silently put our hands on his knees and tummy as the drive progressed.
The car drove sedately along Princes Street, down by Holyrood and out to Portobello. There were many more straight-across junctions than turns. Alistair’s hand spent more time in the tummy region than on the knees. He noticed, without much interest, that a small lump seemed to have appeared in the front of Basil’s trousers. He supposed it was an apple, well a small apple or plum, or maybe a potato but why would he have a potato in his pocket? Strange. But he was too engrossed in the game to worry too much about what it was.
“That’s 90. You’re doing well”, said Basil.
Once, near the end of the journey, just at the foot of the road leading into Portobello and going straight across the junction, Basil’s hand pressed down on top of Alistair’s pushing it down onto the apple. But it didn’t feel so much like an apple now, more like a sausage.
Then they were there. The car pulled up outside the baths.
“A hundred and thirty”, said Basil, patting Alistair’s head with his left hand and adjusting his belt with his right. “Well done Alistair. You’ll soon get your badge. You’ll see.”
We trooped into the baths. Basil and each of us boys went into a separate cubicle. We took off our clothes and put them unfolded into a metal basket. We handed the baskets to the attendant and went to the pool. Just before we entered the water, Basil said, “OK, boys. Do you want to play ‘Sink the submarine’?”
“Yes. Yes” we cried excitedly.
This was a favourite. Basil would float on his back pretending to be a stricken enemy submarine – we’d seen these on Movietone News too. We boys would be British sailors whose mission was to sink the submarine by climbing on board and overwhelming it. This inevitably involved much scrambling about on Basil and holding on to whatever came to hand as he moved about to dislodge us. We loved him for being such a good sport.
Tiring of this eventually, we had a diving competition, then a game of ‘tig’, then a speed swimming competition. All too soon it was time to leave the pool. We had the mandatory cold shower then picked up our clothes baskets and went into the cubicles.
As was the custom, I had removed my trunks and was standing naked waiting to be dried. The door of the cubicle opened and Basil came in. “I’ve just come to make sure that you get dried properly. Stand up on the bench.”
I climbed up onto the wooden bench at the back of the cubicle and stood facing Basil who was still wearing his tiny tight black trunks. He picked up the towel from the seat and started to dry my hair, then my face, neck and shoulders.
“Turn around.” He dried my back and the backs of my legs. “Ok. Turn around again.” He dried the front of my legs and then my feet.
“Now. Most important. We must get every nook and cranny dry.” He shoved his towelled hand between my legs and began rubbing up into my crotch. I opened my legs wide to make it easier. Basil’s hand rubbed right up between the cheeks of my bottom. “Do you like that?” he asked. “It’s important to get every place really dry.”
He pulled his hand out from between my legs. He dropped the towel onto the bench then reached out and took the tiny pink worm in his fingers and started to pull it and rub it.
“I’m just making sure everything is really dry”, he said, watching my face intently. He pulled and twisted the worm till it got sore. I winced. “Sorry. I’m a bit rough. But we can’t be too careful. We need to get every little crevice dry.” He kept up the manipulation. The little worm stayed stubbornly flaccid.
Eventually, with a hint of irritation, he picked up the towel, handed it to me and said, “Ok, that’s you done. Now get your clothes on.” He moved along to Tim’s cubicle.
When we had all been dried and had put our clothes on, it was straight out and back into the Jaguar. We always asked Basil if we could play on the beach outside the baths but he would have none of it. He insisted that our parents would be expecting us back and if we didn’t get home as soon as possible they would worry.
We got back to the car. “Right, who’s to be the driver today?” Basil asked, in an excited voice. “Come on!”
“It’s me”, I cried, standing beside the driver’s door, holding it tight by the handle to prevent any of the other boys getting in. Tommy, Tim and Derek piled into the back seats while Alistair went round the back of the car and into the passenger door. Seeing all the other boys seated, Basil pushed past me onto the driver’s seat and pulled me onto his lap. He pulled the door shut then started the car and drove away with me holding the steering wheel.
When we got to the long straight between Portobello and Leith passing where the Marine Gardens used to be, Basil said to me, “Right Jimmy, your turn. You drive.” And with that he took his hands off the steering wheel and I was left to steer the car myself. My heart was beating with the thrill of it. I could hardly breathe from excitement. Me. Wee Jimmy. Driving a car! A Jaguar. Going at…I glanced at the speedometer…35 miles an hour.
I felt the fingers of Basil’s right hand running up my thigh and into the legs of my short trousers. It tickled but I could do nothing – I was too scared to let go of the steering wheel. I wriggled.
“Careful!” he said, “Watch the road!” His fingers pushed under and into my underpants. He took the little worm between his fingers and slowly rolled, and pulled and squeeezed it. I wriggled in discomfort and involuntarily pulled the steering wheel too hard and the car veered towards the pavement. “Oops, careful”, he said, correcting it with a slight movement of his left hand.
The boys in the back gave hoots of glee at the sudden swerve. Alistair in the front shouted, “Don’t crash Jimmy.” I tried to concentrate.
“This is real fun”, said Basil, “do you like driving, Jimmy?”
“Oh, yeah, Basil. It’s great.” I was excited and proud.
Basil put his left hand on the wheel and started gently to push and pull it making the car weave along the road, not much but just enough to cause us passengers to rock from side to side.
The boys laughed and cheered. “Jimmy’s going to crash. Jimmy’s going to crash!” they whooped.
I could feel myself rocking on Basil’s lap. His fingers were working harder inside my trousers and the worm was getting sore. He seemed to be rocking more than just by the car and he even seemed to be rocking in the opposite direction. This brought his body far more sharply against mine and I wriggled even more in discomfort.
“Keep driving, Jimmy. You’re doing well.” Suddenly he spluttered and gave a gasp. I thought I must have made a mistake. I felt frightened. What was happening?
“You drive now”, I said to him. “I’ve had enough.”
He had stopped rocking and he took his fingers out of my trousers. “Ok, Jimmy, that’ll do. You’ve done well. Hasn’t he boys?”
There was a chorus of “Yeah, but he nearly crashed near the end. He was swerving all over the place.”
“No I wasn’t. It was him. He was pulling the steering wheel.” I shouted, pointing at Basil.
“Come on, come on”, he said to me, “just jump over into the back.” I clambered over onto the back seat and sat down between Alistair and Derek.
“He was.” I said, “Honest.”
And we drove, faster now, up to Princes Street and off to the west and home.
Several weeks later, one of us, savvier than the rest, told his parents what was happening. And not long after, Basil suddenly disappeared. No one ever saw him again. The bakers shop he owned was sold and it was presumed he had moved to another town somewhere.
There was a lot of whispering about him and there seemed to be a lot of anger. But I, unaware of what the whispering was about, missed him and missed driving the Jag.
And many decades later, and knowing what he had been up to, I can yet feel sympathy for a man who must have lived his life in constant fear of being found out, but driven by urges over which he had little control.
